Sierra Laumer and Leah Heisel [ForkHeartKnife Owners]

When Sierra Laumer’s sister, Jenna, was
battling cancer in 2009, the sisters dreamed of opening a restaurant
once Jenna was back on her feet. Jenna lost the war in 2010, and Sierra
knew she had to make the dream a reality because, all too clearly, life
is too short to play it safe.

Sierra and her good friend, Leah Heisel,
opened ForkHeartKnife (1437 Main Street, Over-the-Rhine, 513-381-3451)
in May of last year and business has been booming ever since. Once you
eat there, you’ll know why. Sierra and Leah have a passion for cooking
good, honest food in their tiny kitchen and their menus are often
surprising and wonderful. Sierra blogs about what’s happening in the
kitchen and what she’s making at home, as well as special events and
things she finds inspirational (forkheartknife.wordpress.com).

I stopped in on a Wednesday afternoon and chatted with Sierra and Leah as they prepped for dinner.

Related content

CityBeat: Where was your last great meal and what was it?Sierra: I go to (Newport’s) La
Mexicana probably twice a week and I get the asada torta every time
without fail! I don’t know if that’s the “best” meal I’ve eaten … I
went to Daveed’s while we were on vacation and that was a pretty
incredible meal.Leah: I haven’t really gone out
much lately. I think the last meal out that I had was at (downtown’s)
Nada for our holiday party with the people who help us out here and we
really over-ordered and we got a ton of food and we passed everything
around and it was great. But we’re going next week, for my birthday, to
a progressive thing — it’s too bad you didn’t ask us then! We’re going
to (Jean Robert’s) the Table and some other places.

CB: What is your favorite thing to cook?Sierra: That’s pretty hard for
me. I’m really intrigued by the idea of Spanish tapas. We can’t really
do them here, but I like thinking of things in terms of tapas, in terms
of how can you just sit down and taste a bunch of stuff. I know my
portions don’t reflect that I think that way but I do think that way! I
really like vegetables in general, too. There aren’t many places you
can go to get well-prepared loads of vegetables.Leah: I really like making dips!
I don’t know why, I just really like dip. They’re pretty satisfying to
do and there’s so much you can do with them.